Big Walnut 42, Delaware 13

The Big Walnut High School football team won the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball to defeat host Delaware 42-13 in an OCC-Capital Division game at Gauthier Field on Friday, Oct. 7.

BRAD EMERINE, ThisWeek Community News

The Big Walnut High School football team won the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball to defeat host Delaware 42-13 in an OCC-Capital Division game at Gauthier Field on Friday, Oct. 7.

The Golden Eagles rushed for 446 yards on 48 carries and held Delaware to 40 yards rushing on 29 attempts to sour the Pacers' homecoming. Big Walnut improved to 6-1 overall and 4-0 in the league. Delaware dropped to 3-4 and 2-2.

"Our offensive coaches do a real good job game-planning opponents and our line got an excellent push up front to make big things happen," Big Walnut coach Joe Weaver said. "Our backs did a good job with hitting the hole and finding the cutback lanes."

Running back Lucas Garcia led the way with 134 yards on 12 carries, including a 15-yard touchdown. Quarterback Tyler Beam had 109 yards on only four carries, but two of the carries were for touchdowns (40 and 46 yards). Fullback Alex Clark also scored a pair of touchdowns on runs of 4 and 6 yards, with his second touchdown giving Big Walnut a 14-7 lead midway through the first half.

Delaware took the opening kickoff and drove 80 yards on 14 plays to take a 7-0 lead. The drive, which lasted 6 minutes, 56 seconds, was capped by a 7-yard pass from quarterback Josh Bender to Zack Parsons.

The Pacers were driving for a potential tying touchdown when Seth Myers grabbed the first of his two interceptions and his return set up a four-play drive that culminated with Beam running 40 yards for a score, giving Big Walnut a 21-7 lead.

"We executed very well on our first drive, but Big Walnut made some plays and got some turnovers that gave them the momentum," Delaware coach Zebb Schroeder said. "Their kids made some big plays, so you just tip your caps to them. They're a very good, physical football team and we struggled holding them up front with five guys in the box, so they had a lot of guys back there buzzing their feet and looking for passes."

On the opening drive, Bender threw for 85 of his 147 passing yards.

"Delaware has some weapons, so we had to be ready defensively," Weaver said. "We tried to hold (receiver Matt Bingaya) down because he's their playmaker. He leads the district in receiving. When we did that, they found other guys early to hurt us. But we settled down and got some pressure on their quarterbacks."

Beam's 46-yard touchdown run gave the Golden Eagles a 28-7 lead at halftime and Big Walnut scored on its first possession of the second half on an 8-yard run by Joey Johnson to make it 35-7. Garcia scored on a 15-yard run to extend the lead to 42-7 before the Pacers got a 4-yard touchdown run from Thoeun Sorn with 1:11 remaining in the game.

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